While E3 is the main event this week in the world of games, it all is kicked off by the PC Gaming Show. The main themes for this year are fully interactive open worlds that have so much variety and are so well-designed that no two players will have the same experience -even replaying the games will be completely different! We also saw a lot of first person shooters, mystery/detective games, battle royale games, simulators, sandboxes, a couple of silly but fun RPGs (we’re looking at you, Maneater!) and sequels to well-loved franchises.

Satisfactory

This first-person open world builder combines a practically unlimited variety of biomes to explore as well as the latest in creation games. You are a pioneer and angineer sent to an alien planet to… exploit it. In a good way! You will gather materials and native life forms to create factories, automate them and expand! Just like a human would! Needless to say, the graphics are beautiful and the planets you can explore and your interactions with the locals are limitless. You could spend an eternity taking over planets!

Mavericks Proving Grounds

One of the many battle royale first person shooters announced, Mavericks Proving Grounds is different because of its depth in environment variety and simulation. There are 1000 players in at once and there is much more information for gamers to process. While you play, you have to be careful about what clues you may leave behind for those looking to take you out among other things. It takes the experience of a game like Fortnite to a whole nother level.

The way Mavericks works also allows for the whole narrative of the game to be player-based! So we don’t really know where it will go. There’s aBeta going on too, so check it out!

The Forgotten City

The super popular Skyrim mod, The Forgotten City, makes its debut as its own game. Much in the theme of open worlds and amazing simulators, each interaction with NPCs will affect the outcome of the game and is, in fact, necessary in order to find out clues and info about people and the environment in order t help them. But, it’s not just a re-do of what you’ve played. It has new twists, new mechanics and, of course, all new even more beautiful graphics.

It comes out 2019, so be patient.

Star Control: Origins

The space adventure continues! The new installment places the player as the captain of Earth’s first interstellar ship, which means you have to fight off hostile aliens, and explore new planets. This includes ship to ship combat and the dark creative nature that we’ve come to know and love. Something amazing about this game is that aliens continue interacting with each other and things keep happening even when you’re not there, so the world keeps evolving and changing depending on your interactions with it! It’s slated to release on September 20th this year, and if you pre-order, you get access to the Beta test!

Archangel Hellfire

The VR mech FPS from last year is back to amaze us all with intense PvP and solo mech battles in a free-roaming setting, as well as team battles! There are now 3 mechs, 13 more powerful weapons and abilities, and even more detailed destruction so you can rampage against your enemies at full force! Archangel Hellfire releases July 17th!

The Sinking City is an open world, open investigation detective game. As with other games announced this year, it entails interacting with many NPCs to gather clues and to change the course of your investigation. Everything you say and do will affect the outcome. There is no information on what to do, you just go around and talk to people, experiment, try out different approaches and see what happens.

The game is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s works so it has a dark, twisted feel to it, which is compounded by the “sanity variable”, meaning there are hallucination involved, amazing, new monsters, tools, weapons, skills and traps that you need to adjust your skills for.

Warframe: The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice continues the Warframe story and is available after completing The Second Dream, The War Within, Chains of Harrow and the Apostasy Prologue. The new installment includes customizable UI themes, a revamped Inventory menu, updated vendor menus (like Baro, Syndicates, etc.), new UI sounds across all menus and more! No story spoilers here, but we were warned to bring tissues!

The Sacrifice comes out this week on PC! Check them out on Twitch to get free stuff!

Maneater

Remember sharknado? Well, Maneater has a similarly ridiculous yet fun premise. This is a single-player action RPG in which youplay… a shark! You go around a massive open world set in the Gulf Coast and eat people and anything else that gets in your way. There’s even a full, shark skill tree!

Made by the minds that brought us Killing Floor and running on the Unreal Engine, Maneater is one unique experience to look out for.

Jurassic World Evolution

Dinosaur mania is back with a vengeance, and with the revival of the classic franchise in Hollywood, games are the obvious next step. In Jurassic World Evolution, you get to bioengineer your own dinosaurs that react and interact intelligently to the world around them. And if coming up with dinosaurs wasn’t cool enough, you’re also responsible for designing your park! Of course, you must take into account science, entertainment, and safety… Don’t want to end up with your guests as dino-feed!

The graphics are amazing, the Ai is incredible, and Jeff Goldblum is in it! Go get it!

Stormland

Insomniac combines the VR and open world crazes with a sci-fi world and a fist-person experience for the ultimate in world building and adventuring. You are basically a robot that finds itself broken. You must repair yourself and help other robots you find along the way repair themselves as well to save them. You can explore freely with android movements, fly, use lasers, ramps, climb and more using the tracked hands on the Oculus’ move controllers, which is exhilarating and as immersive as it can be. Every island is gorgeous, different, and could have anything in regards to NPCs, enemies, tools and challenges. Check them out at @stormlandvr.

Night Call

Night Call is a noir narrative detective game in which you play a Parisian taxi driver who finds out that a string of murders are somehow related and all the victims are connected to your Taxi company. Your passengers tell you stories and you get involved because you care about your city and these murders, not to mention you were the last to see the most recent victim alive.

This is another trend we saw, the noir narrative games in a car, much like Neo Cab but with a darker, sultrier twist.

Sable

Sable is another exploration game in which you learn about the local people and culture by interacting with as many characters as possible. There are fallen spaceships and the most beautiful and artistic open world desert setting. Inspired by Belgian comics and Studio Ghibli animation, if nothing else, Sable is a fun, gorgeous adventure through an unknown alien planet.

Anno 1800

Anno 1800 is yet another beautiful open world simulation game with a ton of freedom to explore. It showcases history-inspired naval warfare and the overall game was based on player feedback like expanded features, improved quality, and game dynamics. There’s currently a content creations contest going on and you can vote on ships now! The winner goes in the game!

Rapture Rejects

If you love Cyanide and Happiness like we do, you will be all over this game! Not only is it the hilarious, dark characters we know and love, but it also incorporates the trendy open world battle royal mechanics we’re all currently nuts about.

After a prayer goes wrong, rapture comes leaves you behind. It cartoony, silly, fun and you can sign up for the alpha at their website!

Hitman 2

Hitman fans rejoice! The new installment has all the things we love, like the high detail sandbox layout and agent 47’s briefcase. Of course, there’s a lot of new stuff like an emergency room, tons of disguises, and new game mechanics; not to mention the crowds take advantage of all the latest simulation technology which means you can interact with and get help from the 2000 people in the crowds you can hide in! If you pre-order, you get early access! The game comes out November 13th.

Final Thoughts

We’re very excited about everything announced this year. Some other titles to look for are Neo Cab, a ton of new Sega releases, an expansion for Don’t Starve Hamlet, Noita, Just Cause and Star Citizen.

Stay tuned for more E3 coverage!

Editor/Writer

Author: Lizzy Nyanko

An otaku as far as I can remember. I grew up playing video games, watching anime in Spanish in Mexico where I grew up, and then was a member of both anime clubs at UTEP for my entire university life when I moved to Texas. I love going to cons, I used to cosplay (always hoping to get back into it), and I got to live in Japan for 2 years and be an otaku there! It was literally a dream come true! Now back in the US, I love being a writer and editor for Honey’s. It’s a great chance to keep up with all the latest anime each season and up to date with all otaku news. And without our readers, that wouldn’t be possible so, thank you for being a part of our hive!!